Back to You
by AbbyLockhart05
Summary: Carter beings to realize he's missed Abby's companionship more than ever. Just as he's prepared to discuss it with her Eric calls and needs her. Carter offer's his hand, but will she accept? Could this be the thing that puts them back together again?


_"You can count on me to be here when you need me Abby, no matter what." Carter said as they stood outside county in the crisp, dark night, the moon hanging high above their heads, a few stars visible but most covered by the incoming clouds. _

_Abby looked up at the moon for a moment, anything to focus her eyes on so that she didn't cry. Life had been a little more than she thought she could handle and the weight on her shoulders only seemed to grow heavier and harder to carry each and every day. Finally once she was sure she wouldn't choke on tears or stumble across her words like a fool she spoke, still unable to look at him. "How can you promise something like that Carter? How can you say that when to be honest you don't know how you are going to feel about me tomorrow, months from now, or even years down the road? How can you be so damn sure of things...of us?" She questioned, her voice a little scared, evident that slowly she was breaking and that she needed something-someone to catch her before she shattered into a billion pieces and became unrepairable._

_Carter thought for a moment, choosing his words very carefully and yet they came so sudden he hardly had to think. He slowly lifted his hand up to her chin, guiding her face back down away from the moon and turning her gaze to his eyes just as a loud clap of thunder rang out and a light, cold rain began to fall down around them. "I can be so sure because I love you and that Abby, that will never change no matter how much time passes by."_

"Good morning Chicago! It's currently six forty- five in the morning, this is Brad Jennings here with you on Magic 105.5. Your station for today's hits and yesterday's clasics. Got a weather update for you right now, it seems as if we've got another rainy day ahead of us, its forty four degrees outside right now with a high expected somewhere around sixty. I'll be back in a few minutes with your traffic update until then here's Lifehouse with their hit 'Hanging by a Moment' on Magic 105.5." The dj said in his all too cheery for morning voice which jolted Carter from his restless sleep. That had been the third dream about Abby had had that week, it seemed he kept recalling moments of their life together over and over. He wasn't sure why it seemed to strike so suddenly but it hit at the oddest of times. Was he finally realizing that he was missing a piece of himself? Even he didn't realize just how much of his heart had belonged to Abby, or just how much was still in her posession. He groaned sleepily as he stretched out his entire body, reaching to the far corners of his bed. He blinked a few times as he rubbed his face slowly, trying to gather the strength to drag his tired body out of his very comfortable bed.

"Desperate for changing. Starving for truth. Closer where I started, chasing after you. I'm falling even more in love with you, letting go of all I've held onto. I'm standing here until you make me move. I'm hanging by a moment here with you" The alarm clock radio sang out, either he was just fabricating that song playing or god was really trying to give him a swift kick in the ass.

He got into the shower, letting the steamy hot water pour down on his tense body. He tried to keep himself busy by picking up as many extra shifts as Weaver and Susan would allow, just to keep himself busy. He didn't want to be left alone, stuck with nothing to do but think which lately had been all he seemed to be doing, working or not.

Carter finished up and dressed, then got in his jeep heading into work a little early, it wasn't like he had a whole lot to do at the moment. He turned on the radio, desperate to find something worth listening to amongst the morning chatter of radio shows with annoying dj's playing terrible music. He just kept flipping through, finally giving up but ofcourse...guess what was on?

"There's nothing else to lose, nothing left to find. There's nothing in the world that could change my mind. There is nothing else, there is nothing else... Desperate for changing, starving for truth, closer where I started chasing after you."

"Fine, fine you win! Happy?" Carter said aloud, his comment directed to god who seemed to have it out for him as he flicked the radio off. He could already feel this was gonna be an interesting day.

He arrived at County a few moments later, the chairs in the waiting area already filled with patients to be seen and it was hardly seven thirty. "Good morning Susan." Carter greeted as he approached the admit desk.

"Well to what do we owe the pleasure? You're a little early...a few hours infact." Susan said thinking about it for a few seconds. "Not that I'm complaining, we're packed."

" I didn't sleep to well last night so I figured I'd come in, actually accomplish something. Oh and did I mention I have no life?"

"We could always trade, you can take on mine?" Susan teased, she wouldn't mind taking a break from the crazy roller coaster of a life she'd been on lately. Trying to juggle work, a relationship, and a baby. She handed him a pile of charts which hardly made a dent in the mounting stack she had going on the desk.

Carter laughed a little balancing the charts on his hips, "Yeah,yeah, you can keep yours and I'll keep mine, I think you have a little too much going on for me at the moment. I'm just gonna get some coffee and I'll get right on these charts." he said as he walked away heading into the lounge, Abby was in there on the phone. He quietly acknowledged and greeted her by glancing in her direction, she looked back nodding, acknowledging his presence as well. John set the charts softly on the table and went to his locker to get out his things.

"So what do you want me to do then, am I supposed to fly out there and help you, what Eric?" Abby sighed as she rubbed her temples. "Okay, alright fine but this can't happen again you have to take the medicine, alright I'll be down this afternoon, love you too." she said, her voice no softer than a whisper as she hung up the phone and leaned back against the wall closing her eyes.

Carter glanced over at her for a few moments, he wanted to ask what was wrong but he gathered from his time being in the room that Eric had gotten himself into some trouble and needed Abby to bail him out. He admired that she was willing to drop everything and put her life on hold when it came to her family, she always seemed like she was helping them out somehow. But in the same respect, that exact quality to which he looked up to in her, he looked at with contempt. There were times in their relationship when he truly needed her and she wasn't there because she was off cleaning up the mess Maggie or Eric made. That created a rift between them, or atleast was one of the things that created it. He bit the bullet however and went ahead and posed a question, if she responded okay, but if not he understood. "What's going on?"

Abby opened her eyes and looked at him, hesitantly thinking. There was a time when she would have told him but their relationship had taken a drastic change and she no longer felt that same sense of familiarity. She used to think he was the one person in her life that some what understood the many eccentricities and complexities of her family and the many complications they handed her. But things were different, and she couldn't just talk with him anymore. She took a deep breath in, putting on her stone faced facade, her walls going automatically up. If she didn't do it now she might break, her walls that seemed as tough as bricks could come tumbeling down resulting in one large heap of debris and now just wasn't the time for that. "Ah just something with Eric, nothing I haven't waded my way through before." she said as she walked over beside him and opened up her locker grabbing her coat. "Already 7:45 and I feel like crawling back in bed and telling the whole world to go to hell." she sighed as she removed her stethescope and lab coat.

That brought a tiny smile to his face but it soon faded. He knew her coping mechanism all too well, her brave front, her tough demeanor was something she had to work herself up to. Granted Abby was a strong woman, she had to be in life or else she would have never made it through half of the things she had managed to live through. But right now he could see her worry, her nervousness, but most of all just how tired of this routine she was. She had gone through it with Maggie and occasionally still did, but this with Eric was a new playing field, one of which she felt partly responsible for. Abby had always thought that somehow she gaurded him, that she had protected him from their mother's various insanities and when Eric showed up with signs of the disorder her heart broke, she felt as if she was a failure. She didn't realize it was out of her hands and that she had done all she could do. "Anything I can do?" Carter asked without thinking really, which almost baffled him that he was so quick to offer his assistance.

But ofcourse Abby shook her head, "No, I have to fly down to Florida where he's staying and bail him out, pay for a few things, probably bring him back up here with me if I can, so there's really nothing you can do. Thanks though." she said as she put her coat on and shut her locker door, locking it back up. She hated to leave at the start of her shift but unfortunantly for her and the rest of the world Eric didn't come with a pause or stop button so she needed to get down there before he created a larger mess for her to deal with.

"I could go with you." he blurted out without thinking, which once again was a scary thing to him, he didn't think twice about it.

Abby looked at him with a puzzled expression, "John, no that's okay, its my brother and he's in florida and it just wouldn't be right." she said. They weren't dating anymore, so her problems were hers alone and alone she'd deal with them.

"I wouldn't mind Abby, maybe I can help, Eric likes me." Carter said leaning back against the lockers, sincerely willing to help.

"Well Eric doesn't know what he likes anymore, he's not the same, and things aren't the same between us. I just don't know if its a good idea Carter." Abby said looking at him.

That was true but it didn't mean he didn't care anymore or want to help her. "It doesn't matter, just let me help alright, as a friend."

Abby was now beginning to think about it, he sounded like he wanted to help and from the way Eric had described things he had gotten himself into a pile of trouble. Maybe having a little support right now wasn't such a bad thing.


End file.
